Ducati electronic ignitions are most likely the best made and most reliable of all standard fit electronic's.
The Original AF electronic aftermarket kits were excellent but they were not without there problems.
The 12v DC version often burnt out the lighting coils and their production was very quickly discontinued.
The AC version was much more reliable, the only real issue was they sometimes ran an interference fit between the flywheel and the pickup, some flywheels ran that tight that once the flywheel was torqued up then the flywheel couldn't rotate because the back of the flywheel fouled against the stator retaining bolts.
The fix for this was to machine the mag housing and/or fit a very thin mag gasket, but some machined the back of the flywheel to gain clearance. The stator retaining bolt heads were also ground down to reduce their height.
The AF kits available today are no longer made my Ducati, and the later version has a spacer washer in the flywheel assembly to pull the flywheel out and away from the mag housing. The AF Indian version doesn't appear to be as good as the original.
""Don't get mistaken between the "AF light weight aluminium flywheel" and the "SIL larger steel flywheel", they are not the same.""
The AF Ducati AC stator is wired in exactly the same way as an SIL standard electronic and can be converted to 12 dc in exactly the same way as the SIL electronic, so it stands to reason if you fit the same quality pickup and lt coil to an Indian stator then you will have exactly the same reliability as the Ducati item all converted to 12v DC lighting.
But because the Indian flywheel "Normally" has no clearance issues with the stator bolts or pickup this can make the Indian item an easier better setup from the start. The Indian flywheel is available machined down "lightened" or standard weight.
Indian flywheels have been known to break!!! so some very well positioned strengthening "Welding" in my opinion is a wise decision, but it's not totally necessary on a standard engine.
If you do have the flywheel welded check that it still runs true. I say this because I've seen a few badly Welded up Indian flywheels that do not!!!
There's a wider range of electronic ignitions these days for lambretta's so there is more to choose from other than standard Ducati based ignitions....
I'm going to try the Casatronic in my next engine reworked to run a 12v DC Wassel type rectifier.
I like the solid construction of the flywheel over the riveted lambretta type. Plus it has a more simplified ignition circuit "No pickup" this should mean there's less to go wrong. The only problem I will have on assembly is it's a double spark every 360 degrees, this means my rev counter will not function properly with the casa
Variatronic and casatronic use the same stators but use differently manufactured flywheels.
Our last breakdown.
This is just a coincidence but one of our four had a breakdown on the way back from the South Downs rally, this was on an original AF Ducati electronic stator where the pickup failed.
The pickup has two inbuilt diodes, one of these diodes had failed causing a constantly worsening missfire just as we got onto the M40, he was Carol Nashed home from Cherwell valley services back to Kirkby....
Posted: Wed May 18, 2016 12:24 am
